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Reviews

Steve Roach — The Reverent Sky
(Projekt PRO430, 2025, CD / DL)

Steve Roach — Crossing the Bridge - Live in Boulder
(Timeroom Editions no#, 2024, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-03-20

The Reverent Sky Cover artCrossing the Bridge - Live in Boulder Cover art

Launching into 2025, ambient soundworld creator Steve Roach has released two new albums of dreamy atmospherics, one studio album and the other a live performance; both are single albums, and both contain multiple tracks each. The newest of the two is The Reverent Sky, a collection of four lengthy studio pieces, each completely distinct from the others, all reflecting on past accomplishments but also pointing the way to the future. This time Roach leaves a full accounting of all of the instruments used in the production, mostly a long list of synthesizers, electric grand and Mellotron, plus various production stations. No drums or didgeridoos this time, though there are plenty of percussive sounds as needed. The 25-minute title track opens the set, a glowing, beautifully melodic and otherworldly drift that carries the listener into the deep space regions, wandering inward and outward and all points in between, the low bass sounds and shimmering wall of myriad forces pulling in all directions is completely immersive, with no hint of percussion anywhere within ear’s reach. That will change with the appropriately titled eleven-minute “Sensual Sonic,” where gentle hand drum-like percussion flows through the entire piece, while kaleidiscopic swirls and mysterious floating sounds follow the listener through its duration, with even more colorful surprises as the end approaches. “The Nurturing Ground” grows slowly out of darkness, an introspective meditation of the highest order, where gentle percussion intertwines with fleeting melodic washes and mysterious sonic artifacts — it’s a perfect companion for traveling the paths and crevices of the long inward spiral. The gripping album closer, “Heart of Compassion,” flows with stunning beauty, much like fabric of the title track, though here sounds are far more mysterious and hallucinatory, drifting in and out of several different planes of sound.

For the live Steve Roach experience, the next best thing to actually being there might well be Crossing the Bridge, recorded at Boulder Theater in Colorado on October 4th, 2024, released on December 31st of the same year. An interesting fact about this performance is that Roach shared the stage with cosmic metal band Blood Incantation celebrating the release of their newest album Absolute Elsewhere, providing Roach an opportunity to reach a new audience that otherwise might not hear his work. All the seven pieces herein are perhaps a bit more expansive, yet succinct as well, as they all tend to flow together flawlessly but (most, save two) have run times of less than ten minutes. One certain highlight is “Spirals and Portals,” the album’s longest cut at just over eighteen minutes, a beautiful piece of colorful sprites and busy sequences, flowing over a river of cloud covered ambient vapor, morphing as It proceeds (the audience bursts into applause right near the end), then the piece gently flows into the next, “The Fire Beyond,” a ten-minute tribal-oriented piece featuring soft washes, curious swirling soundloops and his trademark didgeridoo; as the piece proceeds a soft tribal cadence comes to the fore amid the dreamy circular interior. My attention to these two longest tracks doesn’t mean that the five shorter cuts are any less engaging — in fact Roach even revisits a bit of his classic Dreamtime Return with “Songline Passage,” a piece that features his didge prominently. All I can say is that this audience probably got an unexpected treat if they had never encountered the music of Steve Roach before.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Steve Roach

More info
http://steveroach.com/product/crossing-the-bridge-live-in-boulder
http://projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-reverent-sky

 

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